This is an interesting Finnish Civil Guard M28 for a number of different reasons.
First, this particular M28 is in a double slotted "Ski Trooper" stock. This unique looking stock was made to allow the use of a longer dog collar to give the soldier a more Mauser style sling mount, which would allow mounted or ski troopers a more manageable sling style. It is reported that only the first 6000 or so rifles were built with these particular stocks. It is often possible to find M28's outside of this serial number range with this stock, but in those cases it was probably an arsenal replacement. This rifle, however, falls into the known range. The butt plate also matches the rifle, and it would seem a little unlikely that the butt plate would have been taken off and placed on a replacement stock.
Another interesting feature of this rifle is that it seems to have missed being placed into Finnish army custody and later rearsenaled. During the Continuation War of 1941-1944, the Finnish Civil Guard was integrated into the regular army. At this time all Civil Guard rifles became Finnish Army property, and were stamped with an "SA" mark, had their Civil Guard district numbers crossed out, and were "D" stamped to show the rifle was fit to use Finnish 7.62x54r ammunition. This particular rifle has neither and "SA" mark or crossed out Civil Guard numbers, and is not "D" stamped. In fact, this rifle appears to have never been rearsenaled after the war, as was common with many M28's found in the US. While this isn't to say this rifle wasn't taken by the Finnish army when the Civil Guard was integrated, it somehow missed being marked. This M28 certainly shows the look of a rifle that has seen some action and was ridden very hard over it's military career.
